Why She Did It
by WindTreesandStars
Summary: Speculative story set during 2x19 "Rumors". An argument with Quinn about the song he performed with Rachel leads Finn to have a major revelation. Inspired by a comment from sostupid.tumblr on a posting about the Rumors episode. Finchel at heart.


_AN: A brief one-shot speculating about what might happen in 2x19 _Rumors. _The story was inspired by a great comment left on my tumblr blog by . I wrote about how I thought the song "Go Your Own Way" might work into the plot of the episode, and _SoStupid_ remarked: _ "I'm tempted to have Finn realize that his wanting to hurt Quinn parallels Rachel's feelings when she found out about Santana. " _Which, of course, is _exactly_ what should happen! Thus the story._

_Glee does not belong to me in the slightest. _

**GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE GLEE**

"That's it, Finn; we're over."

"Whu—what? But you said you weren't cheating with him; I believe you. I feel awful about what he's going through, and . . . ."

"This isn't about whether you believe me. This is about what you did with her."

"We didn't do anything, Quinn; I told you—she just came along to help me with the stake out. _Nothing happened_."

"Something _did_ happen, Finn. You—"

"Quinn, I swear, nothing happened. I didn't cheat on you!"

"No; you _humiliated_ me. In front of the entire glee club."

"But—what—how?"

"That song, Finn. That song she sang—you went along with it, _knowing_ that it would humiliate me, that it would hurt me. Knowing that everyone here already thinks I'm a horrible person because of cheating on you with Puck, and then on Sam with you. You _knew_ what it would make me look like, and how I'd feel about it, and you didn't even care."

"Ok, first, _I_ didn't go along _with_ it; it was my idea. I had to _talk_ her into doing it with me."

"And I bet you had to work real hard to get her to agree!"

"Actually, I did. She didn't want to, but I convinced her to help me. And second, I just did it because I was angry. You didn't seem to get _why_, so I did it to make you understand the way I was feeling, and . . . ."

Finn stopped abruptly. He felt like the choir room piano had suddenly been dropped on his head, and in the reverberations of its fall he heard a voice echoing.

_"I was so mad at you, and I was, I was so hurt, that I, I wanted to make you feel as bad as I felt."_

That was why. That was why she did it.

It didn't mean that she hadn't loved him; in fact, he'd known all along that she had loved him. He had just refused to admit it. He'd refused to let her back in while he wallowed in what felt like an endless-loop replay of him and Quinn and Puck and humiliation and anger and betrayal last year.

But this wasn't the same at all; _she_ wasn't the same. How she felt about him, and he about her, wasn't at _all_ the same as the way he and Quinn had ever felt about each other. He'd talked her, and Puck, into doing the song to repay humiliation with humiliation; _she_, by going to Puck, had been trying to make him understand how much she was hurting in the only way she could think of once he refused to listen to her or to try to understand what about Santana made her so upset. It was what she'd said—this was never about Puck; it was always about him, about them.

And he wondered why, with everything he had done to cause her pain-he, who thought that he was the good guy because he had loved her enough not to cheat on her, but had hurt her all the same-she had agreed to help him with the song.

Still reeling from his sudden revelation and the new questions it raised, Finn slowly became aware of Quinn's voice repeating his name.

"Finn. _Finn_. Do you agree?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever."

He hadn't heard a word of what she was saying. As Quinn continued to speak, he realized he must have agreed that they could put this behind them and move on. That they really needed to focus their attention on Prom, which was just a week away now. He nodded his head when it seemed like he was supposed to, his attention not in the room. All he could think of was _Rachel. She loved me. She _loved_ me all the time. But does she still? Is it too late?  
><em>


End file.
